<p>During the roughly fifteen years spent as a political prisoner in Vietnamese labor camps from 1960 to 1977, Nguyen Chi Thien composed hundreds of poems. Released following the fall of Saigon, Thien delivered a manuscript of these poems to the British Embassy in Hanoi. He was arrested at the gate and taken to Hoa Lo - the well known Hanoi Hilton Prison, where he spent six of an additional twelve years of imprisonment, often in solitary confinement. During this time, his collection of vivid poems, known as Hoa Dia-Nguc began to circulate in two Vietnamese editions, and eventually overseas. Some of the poems were set to music and popularized by Vietnamese folksinger, Pham Duy. In 1984, a bilingual edition of the poems, translated into English by Vietnamese literature scholar Huynh Sanh Thong, was published under the title Flowers from Hell by the Council on Southeast Asia Studies at Yale University. In 1985, while it was still unknown if he were alive or dead, Thien was awarded the International Poetry Prize in Rotterdam in absentia on the basis of this book. He was released from prison in 1991 and lived in Hanoi until 1995 when he emigrated to the United States. He became a U.S. citizen in 2004.</p>

Flowers from Hell/Hoa Dia-Nguc (Lac-Viet Series, No 1) (English and Vietnamese Edition)

Literature & Fiction

Nguyen Chi Thien

History & Criticism

Yale University Council on Southeast Asia Studies

Life, Poetry, and Prison--Cuoc Song, Thi Van, va Tu Day; Nguyen Chi Thien's poetry in bilingual text (English and Vietnamese Edition)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Allies for Freedom Publishers

Two prose works by Nguyen Chi Thien in bilingual text -- English and Vietnamese. The narratives are of prison conditions in Communist Vietnam. The author was a political prisoner in North Vietnam for twenty-seven years between 1961 and 1991. He won the Rotterdam International Poetry prize while in prison in 1985 and it was not known if he were alive or dead.The two prison life stories are based on his experiences and interactions with other prisoners. One is a story of intellectual prisoners -- poets -- composing in their minds because they were not allowed pen and paper. The second is the story of a young woman on death row for killing a security officer in Hanoi who had harassed her. It is a love story as such events happen in prison. It is also the Old Man's (the author) philosophy of eternal life and hope expressed to The Maiden. Photographs of the Hanoi Central Prison Museum were donated for the author's benefit by Christopher McCooey of Kyoto, Japan. This edition includes bilingual biographical and publishing history of the Vietnamese dissident poet Nguyen Chi Thien.

Hai Truyen Tu -- Two Prison Life Stories; Nguyen Chi Thien's prose in bilingual text

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nguyen Chi Thien. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Nguyen Chi Thien